Turkey on heightened alert as Isis blamed for Istanbul blast

A Turkish member of Islamic State was responsible for Saturday’s suicide bombing in Istanbul, which killed three Israelis and an Iranian, Turkey’s interior minister said on Sunday.

The attack on Istiklal Street, in Istanbul’s most popular shopping district, is the fourth such bombing in Turkey this year and the second one by Islamist militants. In January a suicide bomber blew himself up in Istanbul’s historic heart, killing 12 German tourists.

Turkey is on heightened alert after the bombings, which have killed more than 80 people. A soccer match between Istanbul rivals Fenerbahce and Galatasaray was cancelled on Sunday and the stadium evacuated after what appeared to be a security threat.

Interior minister Efkan Ala identified Saturday’s bomber as a man from a southern Turkish province, adding that five people had been detained so far in connection with the blast.

“We have determined that Mehmet Ozturk, born in 1992 in Gaziantep, has carried out the heinous attack on Saturday in Istanbul. It has been established that he is a member of Daesh [Islamic State],” Mr Ala told a news conference broadcast live on television.

Israeli citizens

Israel has confirmed that three of its citizens died in the blast. Two of them held dual citizenship with the United States. An Iranian was also killed, Turkish officials have said.

Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Israel is trying to determine whether its citizens were deliberately targeted. Eleven of the 36 wounded were Israelis.

In his first public appearance since the bombing, President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey would not give in to militants.

“We will never surrender to the agenda of terror. We will defeat the terrorist organisations and the powers behind them by looking after the unity of our nation,” he said.

As part of a US-led coalition, Turkey is fighting Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. It is also battling Kurdish militants in its southeast, where a two-and- a-half-year ceasefire collapsed last July, triggering the worst violence since the 1990s.

The spate of bombings has raised questions about Turkey’s ability to protect itself from a spillover of both the Syria and Kurdish conflicts.

An offshoot of the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) claimed responsibility for two recent car bomb attacks in the capital, Ankara, that killed a total of 66 people. Turkey sees the Kurdish insurgency as fuelled by the territorial gains of Kurdish militia fighters in northern Syria.

Police were questioning the father and brother of the alleged bomber Ozturk and had determined his identity by checking a DNA sample from the blast scene against one taken from his father, security sources said. Ozturk’s family reported him missing after he went to Istanbul in 2013, the security sources said.

Police were on also on alert for potential clashes at the weekend between security forces and Kurdish militants during a spring festival that is widely celebrated by Kurds. The US and some European embassies had warned citizens to be vigilant before the Newroz events.

Mr Ala said authorities had put 200,000 police and gendarmes on duty.

“We have to take all measures to prevent any terrorist acts,” he said. “But sometimes there are suicide bombings that are hard to prevent.”

On Istiklal Street yesterday afternoon, crowds gathered at a makeshift memorial at the site of the bombing, where mourners laid carnations next to signs that read: “We are here. We are not afraid.”

– Reuters